1. Thousands of islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean were called Oceania.

2. New Zealand is the largest island among the Pacific Islands.

3. Australia has three dominant landforms: the highlands, the lowlands and the plateaus.

4. Central and western parts of the continent are characterized by abundant rainfall.

5. Eucalyptus and other ever-green trees are predominant forest types in the south-east and on the sides of mountains.

6. Australia has animals and plants found nowhere else.

7. Australia is an independent federative state within the Commonwealth of Nations headed by the British Queen.

1. Oceania is divided into ………. .

2. Melanesia is called “black islands” because of ………. .

3. Geologists describe the Pacific Islands as ………. .

4. Australia is bounded by ………. .

5. Australia (including Tasmania) has an area about ………. .

6. The Central Lowlands are located ………. .

7. Tropical forests are situated in the north-east of the continent because ………. .

8. Flora and fauna of Australia include ………. .

9. The Commonwealth of Australia consists of ………. .

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Hundreds of years ago there were stories about a large continent in the Southern Hemisphere. But no one could say what it was like and whether it was inhabited. People called this land “terra australis incognita” or “the unknown southern land”. The Dutch were the first Europeans to visit Australia. They discovered it while making their journeys to the island of Java, a Dutch colony in Southeast Asia. When the Dutch found themselves on the west of Australia they gave the name New Holland to this western part of the continent. In 1770, the English captain James

Cook discovered the cast coast of Australia. In 1788, the first English settlement was established at Port Jackson, the site of the present city of Sydney.

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The brown-skinned Aborigines of Australia, of whom about 50,000 pure-blooded representatives and about 150,000 mixed bloods, are an ancient people with a rich cultural inheritance. This race has existed for 25,000 years. During this time the Aborigines established a life style that is very different from European culture. The Aboriginal people did not practise agriculture or keep domestic animals other than the dog. Natives supported themselves by hunting, gathering and fishing. When European settlers arrived and started grabbing lands from them, the Aborigines were doomed to starvation. Like the American Indians, Australia’s Aborigines are strangers in their own land.

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Australia ranks among the world’s top ten gold producers. The continent has very large iron deposits. Steel mills in Japan and South Korea depend on Australian mines for iron ore. Australia also leads the world in mining bauxite, while Australian oil fields produce only about two-thirds of what the country needs. The rest is imported. Today, manufactured goods account for 25 per cent of Australia’s gross national exports. The largest manufacturing industries are those that make steel, automobiles, machinery, chemicals, and electronic equipment.

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Ecologists call the Great Barrier Reef one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Biologists classify it as the largest living organism on earth. Geographers describe it as the largest coral reef in the world. This vast coral reef forms an almost continuous wall off the eastern shore of Australia, from the Torres Strait to the Tropic of Capricon. The reef received the name “barrier reef” because it forms a barrier between the water of the open ocean and the water near the shore. The multi-hued structure is made of billions and billions of coral polyps, tiny animals that live in warm tropical water. The underwater world of coral provides shelter for an unbelievable diversity of marine life, including starfish, sea urchins, lobsters, and millions of fish.

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Speaking of Australia and neighboring islands don’t forget than the seasons are the opposite way round in that part of the world. December to February is summer; March to May, autumn; June to August, winter, and September to November, spring. Due to the general changeableness of the weather at all times and the predominance in almost any landscape of ever-green trees and bush, you will find the change of seasons far less noticeable than in Britain. And when it is midnight in Britain, it will be exactly midday of the following day.